Theory of Repulsion
by Locrian-Mode
Summary: One of the most unpleasant personal experiences of Bernard's recent life was shared with a Santa named Paul Mason, which was one of the reasons the experience had been so unpleasant in the first place. (Same grumpy Santa from Ch.4 of Just An Elf)
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** One of the most unpleasant personal experiences of Bernard's recent life was shared with a Santa named Paul Mason, which was one of the reasons the experience had been so unpleasant in the first place. This is a dramatic little side-story that sort of explains the relationship between Bernard and the same grumpy Santa from Ch. 4 of my fic "Just An Elf" – the guy who came before Scott Calvin.

This is not very medically accurate but let me wave my poetic license around in a lame attempt to excuse myself from being medically accurate. *waves license*

People/places/ideas/etc that belong to The Santa Clause franchise belong to The Santa Clause franchise and I claim no ownership of said nouns.

* * *

 **Theory of Repulsion**

 **1**

* * *

 _ **September 1989**_

When Mother Nature looked upset, Bernard would usually react by feeling slightly queasy – a reaction that was quite out of his control. It was just that Mother Nature, of all the powerful figures Bernard had met, tended to take things in stride. She worried, yes, but she had the wisdom to know that in the grand scheme of things, most troubles would pass and there usually wasn't a reason to get one's knickers in a knot.

Today she appeared before Bernard as he was taking the stairs down to the main floor of the workshop, and he tripped and almost fell and probably would have cracked his skull (or at least his knee) on the marble landing, had she not reached out and caught his arm just in time.

"Geez, did you have to appear on the _stairs?_ " he gasped, steadying himself. "You know I'm not good with stairs."

"Yes, yes, I'm sorry, but I'm a bit upset about something."

He looked up at her and saw that, yes, she was upset. She looked as if she'd recently been through an earthquake. His gut twisted itself in a knot.

"What happened?" he asked, dreading the answer. Perhaps she'd come to deliver the devastating news that the ice caps were finally breaking up into tiny little pieces, which would mean their ice cave was now highly unstable and likely to collapse and kill them all. Or perhaps she'd tell him that some exploring foreign army was drilling down into Elfsburg as they stood there on the stairs; any moment now a hole would appear high up on the dome, humans in black ninja suits would come dropping through on nylon cords like giant spiders bent on he knew not what –

"It's Santa again," she said in a small voice, as if she were speaking through a plastic straw. She looked at him apologetically. The knot of dread in his stomach uncoiled itself and swiftly reformed into a tiny, angry coal. He took a breath, and then let it out.

"What about him?" he asked, finally.

"He's doing something I don't think you'll be happy about."

"Well that's nothing new," he muttered. "Sweet solstice, you looked like you were about to deliver news of the apocalypse. You were wearing your apocalypse face."

"I have an apocalypse face?" she asked, straightening.

"Yeah, you do. Only comes out about once a decade."

"Well I didn't mean to throw that kind of face at you, but I know you and Santa have been a little rocky lately – "

" _Lately_? Try _always._ "

" – and I just hate to be the bearer of bad news but I think you should know about this. He's, well, he's looking for more elves."

Bernard could only furrow his brow and cast her a quizzical, sideways look.

"How do you know that?"

"A little bird told me," she said, seriously. "Apparently he's spent the day down in Boston, trying to recruit. He thinks… Well, I don't know what he thinks but I'm surprised he doesn't know about – "

"About what an awful idea that is? Oh, he _does_ know," said Bernard, feeling his previously-controlled temper start to simmer. "He and I had this conversation _years_ ago, he _must_ remember!"

Mother Nature's face crumpled a little. She did not dislike Paul Mason, the current Santa Claus. She didn't like it when Bernard got angry with Santa, and she didn't like it when Santa did dumb things, the likes of which he was usually doing, and this oftentimes left her feeling a bit destitute. Bernard wadded up his anger and shoved it down into some inner pit and tried to calm himself.

"This isn't worth your getting upset," he told her, though she very well knew that already. "Let me know where he is and I'll just pop down there and… fix things."

"Not entirely sure where he is right now," she said. "Boston? South Boston, near the commons. That's where the bird was."

"I'll give him a radio call when I get there," Bernard said. Mother Nature nodded, gave him what he supposed was a reassuring smile, and disappeared. He planted his forefinger and thumb into his eye sockets and thought. This should only take ten minutes. Twenty, tops. Maybe thirty, if Santa was feeling particularly belligerent. Bernard certainly was. He could leave his tasks for that long and everything would be fine. He hoped.

After procuring some more Boston-appropriate clothing and dropping his shoulder bag off in a location he'd probably spend half an hour trying to remember upon his return, he cast his mind off to find South Boston, with a small twinge of regret. _Seriously, South Boston?_ Bernard thought. _Couldn't he have picked a nicer place to make bad choices? Hawaii? Isle of Man? Some fjord in Norway?_

But no; here it was. South Boston. Nothing wrong with it, of itself. The buildings raised themselves into the sky, which was currently a greyish sort of smog, what passed for night in the cities. It was drizzling. It didn't _smell_ all that bad, for a city, he supposed, sniffing the air. Wet pavement. Gasoline and cigarettes, tire rubber and French fries and printer ink and more. Fine. A city was a city. It was the _noise_ of a city that always got to him, and as he stood there on the edge of the Boston Commons, with his back to the park and facing the wall of traffic noise, he regretted for a moment that human hearing wasn't as sharp as elf hearing. If it was, surely humans would just quiet down, even a little.

 _Whatever_. Time for a business call. He reached for his radio and called Santa's signal, and waited. September, and the city was still breathing summer air, though it was now carrying a ribbon of chill. Bernard glanced at his pocket watch and worked at keeping his irritation down to the wadded little ball, tried to keep it hidden away inside. He had to remember that confronting Santa was like confronting a non-Newtonian fluid. The harder Santa was pushed, the harder Santa pushed back, regardless of logic and reason.

Really, though, more elves? There was no reason they needed more elves. Even if it _weren't_ a bad idea to go 'recruiting'. The workshop was doing just fine. They were keeping up. Bernard knew Santa had big ambitions to expand, though, and Santa thought that that meant they needed more elves. If they were going to expand, yeah, sure, a few more elves would have been great, if a few more elves could be found, but the expansion was a bad idea, and Bernard had said as much. Several times.

 _You're so old-fashioned,_ Santa would inevitably respond. _Thing BIGGER, Bernard. Think of how much more we could do with an expansion! The workshop hasn't expanded alongside the post-Middle-Ages population boom, it needs to catch up! More toys, more happiness, more belief, more joy!_

 _Ugh, you are_ such _a modernist,_ Bernard would grumble. _This is_ not _a direct-correlation situation. An expansion would create an imbalance that we're not prepared to address, besides which, again, this is it as far as workforce. There aren't any more eligible elves._

 _And again,_ Santa would snoot, _change is life. Life is changing and we need to change with it._

And so on.

People slouched past, hunched against the drizzle inside black parkas. Busses blew down the road and sent eddies of the first frail autumn leaves swirling. Honks reverberated between the buildings like ping-pong balls, setting his nerves on edge.

His radio squealed; he jumped, took a breath, and answered.

"Santa?"

" _Yes, it's me, Bernard. You call?"_

"Yeah, can we talk? Where are you?"

" _I'm on the other end of this call, is where I am. What do you need?"_

"Can we talk face to face?"

" _... Sure,"_ said Santa's voice, sounding a bit wary. " _Boston. I'm at the bus stop at Federal and Franklin, but the bus is pulling up now so maybe you should_ wait until… Oh."

Bernard shot a quick glance up and down the bus station, finding his bearings, before nailing his boss with a glare. Santa glared back at him, but behind the angry frown of the man's eyebrows there was just a smudge of apprehension. It was either the fact that the bus was pulling up and he hadn't yet managed to find exact change, or the fact that there beside him, hidden nearly entirely by the man's shadow, was a magical being.

Bernard paused, staring into the deep shadow at the form, and felt his skin prickle slightly.

"See," hissed Santa triumphantly, if a bit distractedly (still fishing for change in his pockets), "you said it couldn't be done, but I did it. I found an elf, and that was only after a few hour's search – "

" _Shhh!_ " Bernard said, coming forwards and looking around. "People will think you're a looney."

"This is South Boston, that's okay," said Santa, but lowered his voice, glancing sideways.

"And that's not an elf," muttered Bernard, taking Santa's arm and drawing him away from the smaller form beside him. "It can't be. See, it's a…"

Light from the bus station fell onto the thing, and Bernard had to scramble for pronouns. It was a she, and she had pointy ears (wasn't even _trying_ to hide them), cheeks that flashed in the light, shining black hair pulled back into some sort of bun creation that was gathering drops of drizzle like insects caught in a spider's web, wide green eyes that were lit from within in a very familiar sort of way.

She spent approximately half a second shooting sass out of her eyes at Bernard, but presently her eyes became more focused and her elf charm hardened. She stood more rigid. Her smile faltered.

"Would you look at that," said Bernard, slowly, staring at her.

"Told you," said Santa. "Bernard, this is Judy. Judy, Bernard. Judy's going to come back up to the North Pole with me. I left my car up at a parking meter, though, we've got to catch this bus before the meter expires. Then we'll drive back up to Newton and Comet can – "

"We've already got a Judy at the workshop," Bernard interrupted. "This won't fly. Sorry. You'll have to leave her here."

Santa gave Bernard one of his slow, hard stares, but Bernard could only feel Santa's eyes. He himself was busy staring at Judy, and staring hard. He supposed to Santa it merely looked like the two of them were engaging in a very angry staring contest, which was fine. At the marrow of it all, that's all it was.

"Don't," Bernard warned her.

She narrowed her eyes. Her smile disappeared.

Bernard's head tilted very carefully and very slightly to the side and the lenses of his eyes caught something that Judy saw, which made her take a step back.

"Bernard," said Santa, "What are you – "

Judy gave an ugly sneer and melted, the way elves can melt away into their surroundings and disappear. Bernard blinked, blinked again, and looked around. No sign of her; didn't mean she wasn't around. Santa was aghast.

"What the dickens did you just – "

"Bus," said Bernard, gesturing; the line of people had filed on and the bus driver was watching them with disinterested impatience. Santa scrambled once again to dig out the change as they both headed up the steps. There were no seats left but there was room enough for them to stand crammed between the back exit and some occupied chairs, clutching the handrails. The bus started up and Bernard braced himself; busses were not his favorite, nor was receiving a verbal attack the likes of which he was now expecting from Santa.

"You'd better explain yourself," said Santa, quietly, sideways. The bus turned a corner; all the damp people on board leaned to the left. Bernard readjusted his footing and opened his mouth, but Santa kept talking. "I didn't ask you for permission to recruit more elv—… more _employees_ … because, first of all, and most importantly, and what you seem to keep forgetting – I'm the boss of Christm– … of this business," he said, looking around self-consciously. "I know you advised against recruiting but I don't think you understand business plans. Sometimes we have to alter them. We need to be flexible and allow our work force to change with the seasonal demand."

"Yeah I get that, but first of all this isn't a business we're running, and second, there are some things that _can't_ change, and one of those things _is_ our workforce. Frankly, Sa – … Mr. Mason, you don't know enough about the types of employees we hire for you to go around recruiting. _There are no more to be found_." Bernard's anger didn't want to stay hidden in the pit anymore; it was expanding. He shed it; it bounded from him and rampaged around the bus, harmless. He ignored it.

"But I _just_ found one," growled Santa, "and you _just_ blew her off like she was some witch. What did you do back there?"

"She was dangerous."

"O-ho, _dangerous_?" hooted Santa. "You know what, Bernard, I think our Judy back up at the North… I mean at the worksh… At the, um…"

"Headquarters?"

"Yes, thank you, the Judy at Headquarters is more dangerous than the Judy I just met – at least _this_ Judy doesn't wear a hat you could impale yourself on."

"Believe me, this el… This Judy you found did not fit the job profile," said Bernard, and held on to the railing as the bus now swerved right. A woman seated next to where he was standing cast a furtive glance up at the two of them, then stared pointedly out the window.

"You know what, Bernard, after all these years, after all this time working for my company, you keep way too may secrets," muttered Santa. "You say you know these things but then you get mad when I _don't_ know them, but you never _tell_ me anything."

Bernard stared painfully out the window, sharing a visual escape with the woman in the seat next to him. His recently-escaped anger calmed for a moment and stared as well.

"I tell you enough, Mr. Mason," he finally said, under his breath.

"Not enough for me to trust you," said Santa, which stung but did not surprise Bernard. "How do you expect me to take every piece of advice you hand me when you can't back half the stuff up?"

"Are we or are we not in the business of promoting belief in things unseen?" asked Bernard. "Look, raise all the eyebrow at me you want, I don't need you to trust me _all_ the time, but come on. This particular subject is an area you have zero expertise in. I'm trying to help you out here. That _is_ my job, you know."

"I think you're afraid that if I hire more of you people, you'll get replaced," said Santa, with a slight sneer. Bernard huffed indignantly.

"There are _several_ reasons that hadn't crossed my mind yet."

"Maybe you should invite it across so you can consider the possibility, then. I'm not the only one looking for more workers for Headquarters."

Bernard did what was probably a very comical double-take at his boss.

"You… what?"

"Sandman agreed to help me out. He says he can track the location of e—… potential workers… based on the readings he takes…" Santa leaned into Bernard's ear, now whispering, "… of the dreams of children. I believe he's up in Iceland right now. Hopefully having more luck than _I_ have," Santa said, raising his eyebrows and looking out the window.

Bernard almost let his anger back in so he could explode at Santa, but he clenched his fists and kept his eyes firmly inside of his own skull before opening his mouth.

" _Sandman_ is _helping_ you?"

"Yeah… I should probably radio him and see how he's doing, you think?"

Santa unhooked the radio from his belt and made as if to press the call button. Bernard's mind had become a coronary of panic and frustration and fear with this news and he figured what he really should do was just reach out and snatch Santa's radio from his hands and –

Everything around him shifted for the briefest moment.

"What?" he said, because everything looked very strange. It struck him that something was quite wrong; suddenly all was silent, which meant they were no longer… Where had they been? The Isle of Man? Hawaii? Iceland?

Iceland. _Sandman!_

"Over here!" boomed Santa's voice, very close to Bernard's head. Bernard winced. The man was using his 'emergency' voice, for a reason Bernard couldn't guess. Santa was also hanging over Bernard's face, his great fuzzy beard and moustache and eyebrows and hair obscuring most of Bernard's field of view.

"Over here, I said!" Santa yelled, turning aside. Who was he yelling at? Bernard didn't care.

"Santa," he began, "Let me talk to Sandman, he doesn't understand what you've…"

Bernard's own voice came back to him in a slurry of sounds that didn't sound remotely like speech. Santa turned back to Bernard and Bernard was puzzled by Santa's expression. The man was on high alert, eyebrows furrowed.

"You're awake! Are you hurt?" Not only was Santa's question a bit more inquisitional than Bernard would have liked, but it made no sense. Of course he wasn't hurt – why would he be? – and he tried to tell Santa as much, but once again, the noises that came out of his mouth were not words. He shut his mouth, paused, and tried again.

"Of course I'm okay, what are you… what…" Bernard listened to his own voice, and could not recognize it for a moment, but at least they were clearly words. Santa did not look pleased with this response; he turned away once again and called for help from people that Bernard could not see.

His arm hurt badly. He wondered why, and tried to raise his arm, but became aware then that he was on his back. His ears rang and the white arch of the bus's ceiling above him began to flicker with white, red, yellow, blue. More sounds; people sounds. Scared sounds, cries and shouts that were becoming sharp. Sirens.

Bernard sat up; the bus around him seemed to reel. Santa caught his shoulder.

"Lay back down," he commanded, but Bernard steadied himself on the railing, paused, and then pulled himself to his feet.

"You were just unconscious," said Santa, rising to his feet as well. "You shouldn't stand yet. Let the medical people check you out."

Bernard looked at Santa.

"They should take a look at _you_ , Santa, you're… You've got blood on your shirt. Are you… Did you… Are you okay?" His mind stumbled; he tried to catch it.

"That's _your_ blood, you idiot," said Santa. "Sit. Sit sit," he said, pushing lightly on Bernard's shoulder, which caused Bernard to sit immediately. The bus was scattered with people, most of them looking sick and clinging to rails, some dazed and shuffling off the bus. Windows were gone. His anger was gone.

"What happened?" he finally asked. Santa sat down next to Bernard.

"Don't know. The bus just swerved, suddenly, and we rolled. I think everyone is okay… I don't know though, the EMT's just got here."

Bernard sat with his arm and his boss and the sirens and sounds for a minute, maybe two, and tried to gather himself back together, but his gather-ability wasn't working, not quite. He looked down at his arm and saw some blood on his sleeve; there was glass embedded in his palm, and his wrist was very clearly broken.

"You have to fix this," Bernard heard himself say to Santa.

"…What?" asked Santa, irate. "Isn't that more along the lines of Father Time's duties?"

At this moment a man in a white uniform appeared in front of them and Bernard found himself staring into the bulb of a very bright flashlight. The white uniform was speaking; Bernard couldn't catch what he'd said.

"Would you repeat that?" Bernard asked.

"Can you tell me your name?" asked the man again, patiently. "Don't move your head; follow the light with your eyes."

"That's a lot," griped Bernard, who had meant that it was a lot of instructions.

"What's your name?" the man requested again. Bernard was catching up; really, he was. But how was _he_ supposed to answer that sort of question?

"Um," he supplied. Santa watched him helplessly.

"Can you tell me where you're from?" asked the man in white.

Bernard wanted to answer and prove he was okay, but lies were not as quick to come to him as the truth was, and the truth would surely get him diagnosed with some sort of brain trauma.

"Ah," he said, haltingly. "Well it's complicated."

"I see. Can you tell me when your birthday is?"

"No, I have no idea," he said, which was true, but he realized belatedly that it had been a foolish thing to say, given the circumstance.

"Hmm. Can you tell me today's date?"

Bernard, who was used to North Pole time, and who was still trying to catch up, struggled to remember which day it would be here in… Boston? Yes, Boston. He opened his mouth to answer but found that the man in the white uniform was now talking to Santa.

"What's your name?" the man was asking.

"Paul Mason. This is Bernard."

"What's your relation to Bernard?" asked the man.

"He's, um, we're, I'm his, his, his uncle. We're on a business trip." Santa looked puzzled by what he'd just heard himself say. Bernard did not often get to see Paul Mason scramble for words and he would have enjoyed it were it not for the fact that several very upsetting things were going on.

The man in the white uniform began firing off questions about what, exactly, Santa had seen happen, and Bernard caught bits of questions or answers and he watched as the man in white picked up Bernard's left arm and pushed up the sleeve and poked it and pulled at it and generally caused Bernard an alarming amount of discomfort, all in the name of eventually diagnosing the appendage as broken, which Bernard already knew, though admittedly it was one of the few things he was currently sure of.

Suddenly, the man in white had gone.

"Where'd he go?" asked Bernard.

"He said he's going to get a stretcher. He wants to get you to the hospital."

"Ugh. No. Fix it."

"I already said, that's not my job. Can't we get Father Time?"

"Not… No, not this bus thing, fix _this_." Bernard held up his broken wrist so Santa could stare at it blankly, and with a little bit of horror.

"I can't unbreak your bones."

"Sure you can," said Bernard, desperately. His arm was on fire.

"No I can't."

"Look, I don't have health insurance – or _money_ – and you just said we were related. Any cost is going to fall onto _you_. Fix this or you'll have to pay for all the dumb hospital bills."

Santa stared.

"Trying to help you out here," said Bernard.

"You're going to the hospital anyways, though, they think you've got a concussion."

"I'm fine. I'm feeling better. I just… I'll be fine. Just fix this so they'll let me go so we can get out of here."

" _How_?"

"Just put your hands on it and, I don't know, do your Santa magic thing. You use magic all the time. _Hurry,_ would you?" Bernard hoped Santa wasn't catching on to the fact that Bernard could barely get words out at the right pace; he felt like he had to talk in hyper speed just to sound normal. Santa's hands hovered for a moment above Bernard's arm, dithering.

"Hundreds of dollars for a visit to the ER," Bernard supplied. "Probably thousands if they do surgery."

Santa found the resolve he needed to place his hands around the break; almost immediately there came a quiet noise and a dull pressure and then Santa took his hands away. Bernard raised his wrist, turned his bleeding hand about, flipped it back to front.

"Wow," said Bernard.

"Did it work?"

"Seems so."

"I'm _not_ going to try to fix your head."

"There's nothing wrong with my head. Now let's just…" Bernard rose, probably faster than he should have. He took a step and his headache exploded; his vision left him and the loss of sense was replaced by another sense, which was the sense that he was going to be very ill. He tried to lower himself back down but his balance had also abandoned him. In a moment he was back on the floor. Something was behind his head and someone was asking him a question, over and over.

 _"Are you okay?_ "

He couldn't say.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** Thanks for the support! On with the drama!

* * *

 **2**

* * *

"He tried to stand but something happened, he fell."

"Did he hit his head?"

"No, I caught him this time."

"We'll take it from here, sir."

Bernard opened his eyes and saw more flashing lights. More flashlights.

"I'll go with him, I'm his boss. Uncle, I'm his uncle."

"That's fine, sir. Please move out of the way so we can place him on the stretcher."

"Mmmn," said Bernard, who did not want to be placed on the stretcher, and did not want to go to the hospital. He tried to sit up and found hands pushing him back. His vision sharpened. "I'm really fine, can I just sit for a moment?" he asked. The woman closest to him gave him a funny look.

"You were just out for a minute and a half. We're a little worried about your head. We'll just bring you in and make sure everything's fine." She draped a blanket around his shoulders.

"I'm… Geez, I'm fine, look guys. Really," he said, and tried again to sit up, and then heard what the woman had just said as an echo in his head. _My head_. _My hat!_ A flight of panic swept through him; he reached up and, yes, his hat was gone. Of course it was gone, he'd probably never see it again. It had probably been tossed out the bus window. It was probably being kicked down the street by some surly teenager. Probably sitting in the mud. He tried to nonchalantly muss his hair over his ears as he struggled once again to sit up.

This time he succeeded. Hands steadied his back instead of pushing him down. Good. Now if they'd just give him a minute to recover, he was sure he'd be well enough to walk away. Or bus away, or teleport away, or whatever. He pushed the blanket off his shoulders.

"Keep the blanket on, dear," said the woman, in a motherly, no-nonsense sort of way.

"I'm not cold though," he said, leaning away and hoping she wouldn't get too close to his ears.

"It's for shock, dear," she said, fussing with the blanket.

"I'm not in shock."

"Keep the blanket on, hun," she said again with enough self-assurance that Bernard felt he had no choice in the matter. He let the blanket stay. The woman took his hand in hers – careful of the broken wrist that was no longer broken – and began dabbing at the blood on his palm. After a moment she gave up and dumped what smelled like rubbing alcohol on his hand and then wrapped his palm in gauze and a strip of bandage before getting up and hustling off to the next patient.

"Sant – … Mr. Mason," Bernard said. Santa looked down at him.

"What?"

"I need my hat."

Santa looked a bit aghast that Bernard would bring up something so mundane at a time like this, but soon appeared to realize the relevance of said hat, and turned to scan the scene.

"No luck," he said, "but these people have seen weirder things than ears like yours, trust me. Questioning your humanity will not be their automatic response. They'll probably think you convinced your parents to pay for plastic surgery because you thought pointy ears were cool."

Bernard mulled for a few seconds, and grudgingly had to admit to himself that Santa was probably right. He lowered his head and shut his eyes; voices bustled around him. They were official voices. The medics were cleaning up the scene, muttering. No casualties. Two ambulances. Minor injuries. The police couldn't find the black-haired girl who'd pushed that man in front of the bus but they were –

" _Which_ girl?" he found himself demanding, and opened his eyes. Nobody was listening to him. Santa stood aside, looking worried and pressing buttons on his radio. Bernard tried to flag down the nearest EMT. "Excuse me, was there a girl with black hair out here?"

"Don't worry," said the EMT. "Law enforcement will take care of everything."

 _Law enforcement can't do squat against a vengeful elf,_ thought Bernard. What had been her name? Judy. Judy of the Bun. Judy the Vengeful, not Judy the Wonderful from the workshop. Hopefully she'd left the scene after having gotten her revenge.

"Mr. Mason," he said.

"Forget the hat, Bernard, it's fine."

" _You_ forget the hat. Sandman. You have got to call him and ask him to stop. This is the kind of… people… he's going to find."

"What do you mean, _'this_ _is the kind of people'_ , what is 'this'?"

"Judy."

"What about her?"

"Didn't you hear that guy? She shoved a man in front of our bus, that's why we flipped, trying to swerve!"

"Oh come on, why would she do that? She was nice. I still can't believe you blew her off. That was exceptionally rude."

"Santa, she's _bad news._ She was pissed that I sent her off. You really want that kind of person working at the worksh… Headquarters? Because _that's_ who you're gonna get if you go looking. If Sandman is out there finding these people, you've _got to stop him_. These people aren't reasonable, they're unpredictable and – "

He stopped talking as the EMT's began to cluster around him. They wanted him on the stretcher; he didn't want to be on the stretcher. He wanted to be on his feet, walking away from this mess. Stretchers were the door to the hospital and he'd never been to a modern hospital but he didn't suppose it was the sort of place an elf should be.

He convinced them he didn't need a stretcher but he found himself in an ambulance all the same, Santa seated next to him. On the way to the ambulance, Santa had fortuitously spotted Bernard's hat on the glass-strewn ground, and now handed it to Bernard, who pulled it down over his ears. Yes, the medical people probably wouldn't blink if they saw his ears but he was already feeling vulnerable; his hat was more of a security blanket than anything. Not that he'd ever admit it.

Another man sat on the other side of the ambulance with his head in his hands, and an elderly woman lay in between on a stretcher. Bernard was sure this little trip would cost a good chunk of someone's paycheck, though he wasn't sure who would end up paying for it. He wished he could make Judy of the Bun pay but he knew she'd taken herself out of the equation.

"I don't think you realize," he whispered to Santa, as the ambulance took off up the street, "what's wrong with this situation with Sandman."

"For heaven'ssake, you're in an ambulance, Bernard! Give it a rest, we'll talk about this later!"

"No, this is – " It was important, is what it was, but Bernard was once again interrupted. The man in white was coming at him with a syringe. "What's that?" Bernard asked.

"Floobinidyne bumblecrump," the man said, or some other series of mouth-noises that Bernard couldn't catch because they sounded too technical. "Pain-killer," the man mercifully explained.

"I don't need a pain-killer."

"This will dull the pain of that broken bone."

"I don't think it's broken."

"Well we'll let the hospital confirm the state of that wrist but for now, this will help with the pain."

"I don't need it, I'm not in pain," said Bernard, in denial of one of the worst headaches he could remember having experienced. The man in white, despite failing to notice that the broken appendage had been miraculously repaired already, seemed practiced with dealing with belligerent people, and swooped in to stick Bernard in the arm faster than Bernard could think of anything smart to say. One band-aid later Bernard and Santa were once again left by themselves. Bernard's mind stalled; what had he been about to say?

"Right," he continued, irritated. "So… Sandman. In Iceland. Not good."

"Once again," said Santa, "let's talk about this later. Maybe after we've made sure you don't have a serious brain injury."

Bernard made a small, frustrated noise.

"You don't get it, you have got to call Sandman off _now!_ "

"No, I _don't_ get it," hissed Santa, losing his carefully-cultivated cool, "I don't _understand_ why this is so important. Back to the secrets. You have too many, how am I supposed to understand half of what you say?"

Bernard felt the hand of panic begin to close around his neck; it was of utmost importance that Sandman stopped looking for elves but Santa wasn't about to call off the sleep-monger until he understood why. With Santa in such a stubborn mood, and with Bernard's mind shaken from the bus accident, the prospects of success were looking slim. Bernard clenched the blanket still draped over his shoulders.

"Okay look, Mr. Mason," he whispered; the man on the other side of the ambulance had raised his head from his hands and was staring at them curiously. Bernard lowered his voice further and grabbed Santa's sleeve to draw him closer. "Historic history things happened way back in the day and now all the elves who are elves that can be trusted and who _want_ to work at the workshop… work at the workshop. Everyone else – all the other elves out there – either just don't want to work at the workshop, or they are _not to be trusted_. They're mischief-makers, tricksters. Some of them live to cause others hardship. And they'd love to be invited up to the workshop; where else in the world could they cause so much _trouble_?" Bernard paused briefly to let his thoughts catch up with his mouth – his mind seemed to be tripping over itself. "Sandman could be recruiting a handful of Judy's as we speak and they're all gonna hear what he has to say and think _aha, what a great opportunity for mischief,_ and when we get back up there and kick them out, not only will they already have caused who knows how much disruption, and let me remind you we're less than four months away from the big day, but then we'll have a bunch of angry, vengeful tricksters on our butts. Some of those weirdos are _powerful,_ too."

"So Judy…"

"Judy – with the bun – was acting like such a charmer because she realized what an opportunity it would be for her to go up there. Who knows what she would have done. I mean she threw a man _in front of a bus_."

"Maybe she's just that sensitive. You were a complete ass to her."

"If that's how she reacts to being slighted, she's not meant to be up there! If she's going to try to hurt everyone who gets in her way – and put others' lives in danger too – she should be avoided _at all costs_. We shouldn't be rustling up folk like her, you've _got_ to – "

The ambulance stopped. Bernard straightened as the ambulance doors opened to reveal that they were in the docking bay of a hospital. EMT's once again began to move equipment and bodies around and Bernard shot Santa a glare, gesturing meaningfully at the radio strapped to his belt. Santa, however, still looked skeptical. Or distracted. Bodies were rushing around, wheelchairs and straps and levers were flying; Bernard found himself being placed on a stretcher. His desire to get up flared for just a moment but he was suddenly tired, or dizzy, or perhaps underwater. Was it raining that hard? His head swam. Somewhere above him in his periphery Santa's facial fuzz floated. He closed his eyes against the drizzle.

When he opened them again, he was indoors. Someone's voice was saying something about a CT scan. Santa was making noncommittal noises and looking down at Bernard's head as if it were a Rubik's cube.

"I feel weird," Bernard mumbled. Someone wearing a white coat leaned over Bernard. They were doing something to his non-unbroken wrist; securing something around it. A plastic hospital bracelet with a barcode.

"The floobumble crumpidium may be causing you to feel slightly disoriented," the white coat said, and waved a flashlight in front of Bernard's eyes. Whatever the pain-killer was really called, Bernard's brain seemed determined not to allow him to register it. "Well, Bernard, this report includes two occasions of loss of consciousness, one of which was prolonged. That, along with this reported mental disorientation you were experiencing when the EMT's arrived and these optical abnormalities makes me think we should get you in for a CT."

Bernard tried to push away the pain-killer induced confusion.

"What's a CT?"

"Computerized Tomography; it can show us what's going on inside your head."

"Yeah, fine, whatever," Bernard muttered, and turned towards Santa. The man's radio was right there, within Bernard's reach. Maybe the best course of action would be to simply reach over and call Sandman himself. Better to ask for forgiveness than permission, right?

His stretcher was moving; he'd missed his chance. Someone was making the stretcher fold up on itself to form a sort of chair, which was infinitely more comfortable, but now Bernard couldn't see Santa. He regretted that he himself didn't have Sandman's call code. His own radio was right there on his belt but Sandman had never been known to carry a radio, so of course had had no call code before this.

"Mr. Mason," he said, deciding to switch tactics, "I can explain everything to you with enough time, but I don't have that time right now – hello," he said, turning as he felt something happening to his right side. A young nurse was wrapping something around his arm. "What is that, what are you doing?"

"Taking your blood pressure," she replied. Bernard, who had never had his blood pressure taken, watched just long enough to make sure it wasn't going to be awful and that she was not, in fact, taking his blood pressure _away_ , before turning back to Santa.

"Um. I don't have time right now to explain everything but if you could just call him and ask him to stop, I'm sure I'll be out of here soon enough and then we can just talk everything out properly. In a better setting. And then you can decide whether or not to go through with this."

Bernard had no intention of letting Santa go through with this plan either way, but perhaps telling Santa that Bernard was willing to give him the option would cause the man's resolve to soften.

"Let's not discuss this right now," said Santa, with an air of finality.

"We _have_ to!" Bernard said, though he would have liked nothing more than to drop the whole thing. He felt as if his brain were doing flip-flops.

"I'm sorry," said the nurse with the blood pressure cuff, who was staring at a small screen and looking concerned. "I'm going to have to re-take your blood pressure. If you could not talk for just a minute I think we'll get a more accurate reading."

Bernard leaned back in the chair, fuming a little on the inside, and Santa turned away, sticking his jaw out, not that it was very noticeable under his tangle of beard. The blood pressure cuff tightened and Bernard was reminded of the feeling of panic he'd had in the ambulance. The feeling came back; even in emergencies, Santa was stubborn to the point of potential disaster. _Honestly_.

The cuff came off and the nurse scribbled something on a clipboard. She turned away and shuffled through some drawers. Bernard opened his mouth but Santa beat him to it this time.

"Stop," he demanded, quietly. "This is not open for discussion. We _can_ talk about this later. I _will_ give you the chance to explain. Now is not the time."

"Now _is_ the time. Now is the _only_ time."

" _We are in a hospital!"_ Santa hissed, leaning down towards Bernard and punctuating each word.

"It doesn't matter where we are!"

"You've hit your head, you're loopy on pain-killers, you're _overreacting._ "

"No, you're _underreacting_."

"Okay, right arm, please," said the nurse, who was clearly trying very hard to ignore the conversation in front of her. Bernard, trying and failing not to be irritated by the constant interruptions, held out his right arm.

"Are you allergic to iodine?" she asked him.

"No," he said, wondering for a moment what iodine was. She poked and prodded at the crook of his arm for a moment and his own mind floundered around for another way to convince Santa to pick up that radio. His frustration was in the way; his mind was stuffed with anger. It was getting the better of him. He definitely couldn't think of anything to say when the nurse was right there, hovering over him with that –

"What is _that_?" he asked.

"An IV catheter. You're going to have a contrast scan, this is where the iodine will go in. This might pinch."

Afterwards he would have described it as more of a stab but by now he was so bewildered by what was happening that he didn't have much of a chance to react. Presently there was a giant hollow needle stuck in his arm and secured with tape and then the nurse had disappeared again. Bernard stared at his arm and, once again, tried to collect his scattered thoughts.

Upon collecting them, he felt his heart hammer against his chest. He turned back to Santa, who was staring at Bernard's arm and looking slightly queasy.

"Look," he began. "If Sandman finds any elves – which he _will_ – and if he invites them to work at the Pole – which he _will_ – we'll have to turn them away, because they'll be rotten. They _will_ be. And then…"

The nurse returned and leaned over Bernard's arm with another syringe.

"Is that the iodine?" asked Santa.

"No; this is just a quick test to check his kidney function."

"… Test?" asked Bernard. The nurse stuck the needle tip into the catheter.

"Yes, a blood test."

" _No!_ " Bernard gasped, jerking his arm away, which caused the nurse to startle and drop the syringe on the floor. "I'm sorry, I'm really sorry," said Bernard, "I didn't mean to make you do that…"

"It's fine," said the nurse, in a tired sort of way, bending down to retrieve the dropped tool.

"I don't want my blood drawn," Bernard explained, feeling very silly. The nurse sighed, threw out the old syringe, and started to put together a new one.

"I'm very sorry, sir," she said in a monotone, "but your elevated blood pressure indicates a need to test your kidney function before we're able to safely administer the iodine necessary to take an accurate CT scan of your head."

"I don't have elevated blood pressure."

"Well, you do, it's very elevated."

"Of course he's got elevated blood pressure," grumped Santa. "He was just in a bus accident. And we've been arguing."

"Our equipment indicates possible hypertension and a requirement to take a blood sample before allowing this scan to be given."

"I don't want my blood drawn," said Bernard, who wasn't quite following the nurse's logic but was quite sure about the fact that he didn't want his blood drawn. He knew enough about this stuff to know his blood was different from human blood and probably couldn't be tested the same way human blood could be. Plus whoever saw his sample would probably flip out and then he _definitely_ wouldn't get a CT scan. The nurse stepped around Bernard and faced Santa.

"Mr. Mason?"

"That's me," he said, raising an eyebrow.

"As Bernard is a minor and not in his mental capacities, you, as his current legal guardian, have the right to refuse or grant permission for any procedure."

 _"What_?" cried Bernard. Santa merely raised both eyebrows and looked down at Bernard with amusement.

"Not in your mental capacities, eh? Right from the doctor," said Santa, but he then turned serious and looked at the nurse. "No blood tests," he said, and Bernard sighed, relieved. Apparently Santa was at least aware of why _that_ would have been a bad idea. The nurse, however, did not look happy about Santa's decree. She pursed her lips and looked down at her patient.

"That means we won't be able to perform a CT, then. Are you sure? Let me remind you, Dr. Lincoln suspects a level 3 concussion, possibly more severe."

"Well… I'll just have to be careful then." Bernard said, as she shrugged and bent and removed the catheter with a bit more force than possibly was actually necessary. She stuck a band-aid on his arm and walked away.

"Think I made her mad," Bernard muttered.

"That's the second lady you've made mad today," said Santa. "Let's see how many more you can do."

"Oh stuff it."

"Ooo, mouthy. Don't forget, I'm the one calling the shots here now. So to speak."

"Don't look so happy about it," said Bernard, resisting the urge to pull his hat down over his entire face.

"I'm not. I don't want to be in charge of you."

"Yes you do. You want to be in charge of everything, that's why you won't call Sandman off. You can't stand to put your own plans on hold." Bernard knew nothing good would come from having said all that, though it was the truth, as far as he was concerned. The pain medication was making him say things now that he previously would not have dared to say, because he knew how mad it would make Santa.

True to form, Santa scowled down at him.

"You're putting the entire workshop in danger," said Bernard. Santa looked away.

"Is that nurse coming back or what?" the man asked, distractedly. "She can't just _leave_ us here."

"You're putting more than just the workshop in danger, you're putting _Christmas_ in danger. It's your responsibility to keep it safe and now look what you're doing."

"Maybe we can leave," muttered Santa.

"Hello there," said a new voice. Bernard tried to see who it was but, from his position, could not. "I'm Dr. Norskard, MRI technician." The voice was female; Bernard made a mental note to try extra hard not to make her angry.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** Thanks for your thoughtful responses! You guys are making me think. :)

* * *

 **3**

* * *

"I'm Paul Mason," said Santa to the newly-arrived Dr. Norskard, "I'm this guy's legal guardian." He pointed his thumb at Bernard. Bernard rolled his eyes. Dr. Norskard came around the chair and handed Santa a clipboard and pen.

"Have Bernard help you fill out this form," she said, and then faced Bernard, staring at him curiously. "You're in luck," the doctor began, and Bernard could not possibly imagine why the doctor would have reason to say that, given the circumstances. "Boston is a great city to get a head injury in. We're equipped with some of the latest medical technology. We're swamped with MRI appointments for our permanent machine but we've got another MRI machine – portable – on the premise this month; we've managed to open a time for you."

"What's an MRI machine?" asked Bernard, warily. "If I'm going to need a blood test for it I don't want to be MRI'd."

"It's a machine that can take a picture of the inside of your body," said the doctor, wheeling the stretcher around and down the hallway. "It takes a while longer than a CT would have but we use different materials; we won't have to test you beforehand."

"How long will it take?"

"No more than 45 minutes."

 _Wonderful_. That was enough time for Sandman to round up a sizeable gang of elves – enough to cause some serious, serious mischief. He _had_ to convince Santa to make the call before they did the MRI thing.

"Mr. Mason," he began, not sure of how he'd proceed with the doctor hovering over him as they brushed past other patients and staff in the hallway.

"Shelf it, Bernard, we've got some paperwork here," said Santa, perhaps with a touch of glee. "Got to get this form filled out before your scan. Good thing I'm here to help you out, I know how much you hate paperwork."

"Gee, Uncle Paul, you're the best."

"Anything for my favorite nephew."

"And by best I mean worst."

"Oh you joker," said Santa, with a distinctly manufactured chuckle, before looking down at the paperwork and putting on his Business Face. "Do you have any metal fillings?"

"… What?"

"Fillings, in your teeth? Made of metal?"

"Of course not, why would I – "

"Do you have a pacemaker?"

"A _what_?"

In this way, Bernard, Santa, and Dr. Norskard came to the hospital wing containing the two MRI machines, Santa asking Bernard a stream of really puzzling questions about what was in, or attached to, his own body, and subsequently made worrisome little marks on the paperwork attached to the clipboard. Bernard, of course, had no metal in or on his body whatsoever, which he could have told them if they'd have just come right out and _asked_ (except his radio, which Dr. Norskard swiped away and hid) and by the time Santa had completed the paperwork, Dr. Norskard was helping Bernard sit up and swing his legs over the edge of the stretcher. He bit back telling the doctor that he didn't need help; he had to remember, he was trying not to upset her. Besides which, he noticed that the walls seemed to be wiggling slightly. He blinked. _Stop that_ , he said to his possible brain injury.

"Does your makeup contain any metal alloys?" Dr. Norskard asked him mildly. He gave her a quizzical look and got the impression she was trying very hard to keep her assumptions to herself.

"I'm not wearing makeup."

"… Your face has _something_ on it. It looks sort of metallic. Are you _sure_?" she asked.

"Oh my gods, I'm… I'm not wearing any metal alloys," he sighed.

"Good. I just wanted to check. Here we are," she said, cheerily. "Mr. Mason, there's a waiting room right around the corner, you can take a seat. There's a vending machine there too."

"Wait, can't he come in with us?" asked Bernard, slightly frantic and nearly spraining his brain in an attempt to think of a way to get Santa to call off Sandman.

"If you're alright with Mr. Mason seeing the images, he can come with us to the radiology room. Mr. Mason, if you have any metal – "

"Yeah, take it off now," said Santa. "I had an MRI once on my wrist. Tendonitis."

Dr. Norskard was not listening; she was shining a flashlight into Bernard's eyes and looking grim, or he _thought_ she looked a bit grim, though it was hard to tell while being blinded by a flashlight.

"How are you feeling?" she asked him. "Any nausea?"

"No, I'm fine."

"Dizzy?"

"No."

"Facial numbness?"

"No."

"Good. Let's…" She helped him stand and made as if to guide him towards the radiology door (marked, he noted with concern, with large CAUTION signs). He reached over and grabbed Santa's arm instead. The walls were still wiggling a little, and hanging onto Santa's arm was an excellent excuse to whisper frantically in his ear.

 _"You have no idea how bad this could be,"_ he began, as they followed Dr. Norskard through the doors. _"I'm serious, this is_ not _the time to be stubborn."_

Dr. Norskard glanced behind her curiously, but turned around and kept walking. Bernard hauled on Santa's shoulder and lowered his voice further still as they went down another short hallway.

 _"These elves are_ dangerous _. You're putting Sandman, and the workshop, and Christmas, and innocent lives in danger."_

"How can _all_ of these elv – "

"Shh!"

 _"How can_ all _of them be so dangerous?"_

 _"Look, I'll answer all your questions when we get back up to the workshop but for now you've got to trust me."_ Bernard winced; he'd almost just begged right there.

Dr. Norskard cleared her throat and opened yet another door, eyebrows raised at the two of them. Bernard stared at Santa and thought that maybe the man's resolve to be an ass was beginning to crack a little; there was a smidgeon of self-doubt showing in his eyes. Was Bernard finally getting through to Santa?

 _I'd better be,_ he thought, and they followed Dr. Norskard through the door marked "RADIOLOGY: Authorized personnel and accompanied patients ONLY".

The walls began to wiggle furiously.

"Are you okay?" asked Santa dubiously, as Bernard's grip on his arm tightened.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he replied, which was a lie, and all three of them knew it. He tried to hide it anyways. The doctor eyed him and indicated a chair next to a slew of computerized equipment. From the chair he could see through a large window into the next room, which was white, and contained a giant white machine that had a deep, dark hole in the middle and a sort of oven-rack sticking out where he supposed people were supposed to lay before being shoved into the oven to be baked.

"Is that the MRI?" asked Bernard, pointing. His mouth felt as if it were full of cotton, or ice, or something unpleasant.

"Yes," said Dr. Norskard, whose fingers were romping across the keyboard of a computer. "Do you experience claustrophobia?"

"No."

"Good. Take your hat off, please."

Bernard moodily snatched his hat from his head, not really caring if she saw his ears.

"Quick blood pressure reading," she said, and he wondered, as she wrapped the cuff around his arm, if people who worked in hospitals were allergic to noticing pointy ears, or if perhaps everyone here had been immunized against noticing pointy ears. He sat resignedly in the chair, hoping a high number wouldn't cause any further complications, and then his eyes landed on Santa. His gut, which was suddenly pointedly unhappy, did a somersault. _He hadn't called Sandman yet!_ Bernard fumed quietly as the cuff breathed and beeped and sighed, knowing if he said anything the doctor would probably have to take another reading.

She took the cuff off, brow furrowed.

"That's a very high reading."

"He was just in a horrible bus accident," said Santa.

"Yes, and _why haven't you called yet_?" asked Bernard of Santa.

"Well I took my radio off out there, of course. She took yours too. Metal."

"Then get out there and call!"

"I'm sorry to interrupt," said Dr. Norskard, "but we need to begin this scan; again, it takes a while to complete and so far Bernard's symptoms indicate there's cause for concern. He seems to be getting worse, all of a sudden," she muttered. She pulled Bernard to his feet, which Bernard resented a bit but couldn't deny that he felt none too steady. He glared at Santa, who looked torn in several directions at once. He thought about telling Santa that he wasn't going to go in for the MRI until Santa left and made his call but then Dr. Norskard opened the heavy door that led into the room that contained the MRI machine, and he quite forgot about Sandman.

He felt something smash into his body. He let go of Dr. Norskard in order to shield his face but whatever it was simply kept smashing into him. He felt his sense of balance evaporate; fortunately, Dr. Norskard had not let go of him. She managed to heft him forward onto the oven-tray MRI table, and he managed to sit upright but wasn't sure how long he would be able to keep track of exactly where the floor was and which way gravity was pulling. Why wasn't Dr. Norskard reacting?

"What's happening?" he asked. Pressing his hands to the sides of his head was doing absolutely nothing but he couldn't think of where else to put his hands at the moment.

"Well," said Dr. Norskard, in the voice of someone who is very pointedly attempting to remain calm, "there may be some internal bleeding in your head, causing you to feel strange sensations. At this point I'd really recommend a CT scan; your symptoms are becoming severe and CT's are much faster. If something is happening that we need to take care of right away – "

"I don't want a blood test," he said. Gravity was beginning to betray him. He placed his hands firmly on the table to either side. Dr. Norskard looked helplessly back into the radiology room, where Santa was waiting, looking rather horrorstruck.

"Mr. Mason will have to make that call."

Bernard squinted at Santa – the light in this room was really impractically bright – and wondered if he should be berating him for not being on his radio right now or begging him to deny a blood test. In the end Bernard said nothing, and looked at the floor, trying to keep steady.

"Let's just get this scan over with," Santa finally said.

"Alright," said Dr. Norskard, quietly, and began to move very quickly. Bernard found himself lying flat on the oven-tray ( _stop calling it an oven-tray_ , he told himself), and suddenly there were foam things around his sides and Dr. Norskard was asking him if he was okay so far.

"I'm fine," he said. He still felt as if something were smashing into him in waves, and the feeling was uncomfortably familiar. He could not place it. "Where's Mr. Mason?"

"I'm over here," said Santa, from somewhere Bernard couldn't see.

"Why haven't you left yet?" Bernard groaned.

"These are to help you keep still," said Dr. Norskard, and Bernard found that straps had been secured over his body, which was a very disconcerting feeling. Although not entirely unwelcome, as he truly felt as if the table was tipping over sideways, not that he was about to admit as much. Santa hadn't replied; Bernard started to collect some scattered words to ask him yet again, but Dr. Norskard bent to the side of Bernard's head with a pair of ear buds in her hands, and said,

"Ear buds, so we can…"

She stared at his ears. Bernard wondered if he should even bother making up an excuse for them.

"… Um, so we can… Talk. So you can hear us talking." To her tribute, she didn't say anything about the nature of his ears, and merely stuck the ear plugs in. They didn't fit very well but he didn't suppose she had buds specially designed for elf ears so he didn't say anything about it. "And we'll be able to hear anything you say in there; there's a receiver in the machine. But try not to talk, it might make the scans blurry."

"Okay. Can I just ask Mr. Mason to – "

A cage came down over his head.

"This is to help keep your head still," explained Dr. Norskard. "It's imperative that you keep still for this. How are you doing?"

Bernard blinked; there was a cage over his face and he was tied to a table, something was still smashing into him, and now his heart, which had been slightly overexcited before, was now kicking around inside his chest like a drunken pony. It skipped a beat.

"I'm fine."

"Are you sure you're not claustrophobic?" Her face hung somewhere off to his right; she was fiddling with something out of his now-limited field of view.

"Yeah, I'm sure." His heart skipped several beats in a row, for good measure.

"I'm going to put in the IV catheter for the contrast dye now," she said, and pushed up his sleeve. Of course there was a band-aid in the way from the would-be CT scan contrast line, so she muttered, and leaned over him to push up his other sleeve. Bernard was too distracted to respond. The pain in his head was mounting; he felt like a mountain troll were stepping on his skull with each unsynchronized beat of his heart.

"This will pinch," said Dr. Norskard, and then came the stab, but Bernard was far more concerned with this awful smashing, the spinning and blurring and feeling like his center of balance had dropped out from under him. _What does this feel like?_ He asked himself, over and over. It seemed imperative to identify why this feeling was familiar but Santa was still standing in the doorway, or so Bernard assumed, and it was taking most of his concentration to simply remember why it was that he didn't want Santa to be standing there.

 _Sandman. Iceland_. That's right.

Dr. Norskard clipped something to the end of his finger and said something about his pulse, and then draped a blanket over him and said something about the machine and cold air and Bernard didn't catch any of it. She put her hand on his shoulder.

"We're going into the other room now," she said. "Still okay?"

"Yeah," he said, weakly.

"Remember, we'll still be able to communicate once I shut the door between our rooms." With that, she must have pressed a button because the oven-tray ( _table, it's a table)_ started moving into the white machine and suddenly there were mere inches of space between Bernard's face and the top of the tube, not that he could see much of the tube itself due to the white cage. The pressure in his head worsened, as if he'd just been thrown between the teeth of some huge monster and it was now chewing on him. Around his ill-fitting ear buds he could hear Dr. Norskard walking across the room and shutting the door, which he couldn't help but think sounded like the shutting of a coffin. Loud. Heavy. Now the only noise he could hear was the humming of the machine, and the thumping around of the pony in his chest, which had now blown the lid off of 'drunken antics' and seemed to be focusing not on pumping blood but forcing its way through his sternum, Alien-style.

" _Mr. Mason is here with me in the other room_ ," said Dr. Norskard's voice in his ear buds, causing him to start. " _Can you hear me?"_

"Yeah."

" _I'm going to start the IV remotely. You may feel cold."_

Instead of responding, Bernard opted simply to breathe. One moment later a chill took hold of his left arm and began to travel up to his shoulder.

 _"Still doing okay?"_ asked the ear buds.

"Yeah," he said, again, and berated himself for not demanding that Mr. Mason leave the radiology room, fetch his radio, and… And what? The chill reached past his shoulder.

" _Remember, all you have to do is hold still. Ask if you need anything. Once I turn the machine on there'll be a lot of banging and clicking around your head as the magnets move around you_."

" _Magnets?"_ he tried to yell, but at her words he felt as if all of the air in his lungs had vacated his body, and he had no breath with which to speak. He forced his lungs to inflate.

"Magnets?" he tried again, and this time made a noise, small and pathetic though it was.

" _Did you say something_?" asked Dr. Norskard.

"Did you just say… Did you say there were… _magnets_ in here?" Panic had jumped fully-fledged to the forefront of Bernard's brain now and forming a complete sentence seemed out of his grasp.

" _Yes_ , _there are magnets in there,"_ Dr. Norskard said. _"And they'll make a lot of noise but don't worry about it."_

"Made of iron?" he said, hoping they could hear him more clearly than he was hearing himself.

 _"Well…"_ said Dr. Norskard, " _To be honest I'm not really sure, some ferromagnetic material. Why? Did you remember some metal you're wearing?"_

"Don't turn the machine on. Let me out," Bernard heard himself say.

" _… I assure you, the machine is completely safe. Safer than a CT scan."_

Between the overwhelming urge to keep breathing and the overwhelming urge to shout, Bernard wasn't sure what to do with his precious lungful of air.

"Let me out," he said, again. _Don't turn the machine on, don't do it._

" _Are you feeling claustrophobic?"_

 _IRON_ , his brain was yelling, along with a string of curses, none of which he had the wits to actually say. _Of course._

"Yes, this is, I'm, I think I'm claustrophobic," he finally said. Saying that many words seemed to have winded him; he tried to concentrate on breathing but the knowledge that he was sandwiched between several large slabs of what might be magnetized iron, and that with the press of the button they'd be activated, made even breathing a difficult task. His arms twitched; he wanted to shield his face, but the straps held. Why weren't they moving him out of here yet? He listened to the ear buds; Dr. Norskard was talking, but she wasn't speaking to Bernard.

 _"Mr. Mason, it's clear that there's something serious going on in his head and if he's not going to let us do a CT it's important that we're able to complete this scan. His pulse is becoming highly erratic. We have the ability to administer a sedative through the IV here to combat claustrophobia; we just need your permission."_

"Don't give me a sedative," Bernard said, " _Please_ don't start the machine, just get me out. Please let me out." Santa didn't know about the iron thing, did he? No, he did not. Bernard had never told him.

" _Bernard,"_ said Santa's voice in Bernard's ears, " _you'll calm down if we give you a sedative. It's totally safe in there."_

"It's _not_ safe in here," Bernard said. "Don't sedate me, don't turn this thing on. I haven't told you…" He paused to take another breath. "I haven't told you something about… I didn't know there was iron, I didn't know there were magnets in here, you have _got_ to get me out of here."

" _Oh for heaven'ssake Bernard, it's an MRI machine, how could you not have known? Magnetic Resonance Imaging, that's what MRI stands for, why else would the doctor have made sure you weren't wearing any metal?"_

"How was I supposed to know that?" he cried. "I don't keep up with these things!"

" _Mr. Mason,"_ said Dr. Norskard, " _his pulse is climbing, this could be dangerous if he has a brain injury. We either need to sedate him now or pull him out."_

" _Look, Bernard,"_ said Santa's voice, _"she says you need this scan in order to – "_

"I don't need it!" he said, but his voice came out quiet. Could they even hear him? His lungs weren't working right, panic was making his throat close up. His mind screamed but he couldn't communicate.

" _I think we should do this,"_ Bernard heard Santa's voice say.

"NO!" This time, Bernard's voice rang. " _Please_ , you have to trust me, boss, you _have_ to."

For a moment Bernard could hear nothing through his ear buds. The great magnetic machine bore down on him. Was Dr. Norskard about to turn the machine on? Bernard struggled again; he could move his arms a little. He reached across himself and tried to pull the IV out of his left arm but his hospital bracelet was snagging on the strap across his body and the tape holding the needle in place was very stubborn, or else the iron was making him feel exceptionally weak, or…

He muttered a curse at the people in the other room, and put all of his panic into fighting off the sedative; he yanked at the IV line, finally pulling the tube out of the catheter.

"Sedative's not going to work," he said aloud.

" _He pulled the IV,"_ said Dr. Norskard's voice, flatly.

"Let me out," Bernard said, but it was more of an echo of recent thoughts. His thoughts, confused as they'd been beforehand, were bogging down with the small amount of sedative that had managed to sneak through the IV before he'd yanked it, and with the knowledge that Santa had ordered the sedative to be administered, despite Bernard having begged him not to. Something within him crumpled. He could feel himself shaking; his teeth rattled in his jaw.

There was a hum, and the top of the tube, beyond the cage over his face, began to move. The oven-tray was coming back out. He should have felt relief but all he was feeling at the moment was sick. Even once the tray had come out completely and he could see the ceiling of the room, which seemed impossibly far away compared to the ceiling of the MRI machine, and even though Dr. Norskard was right there pulling the blanket off and taking the face cage away and undoing the straps over his body, still all he could feel were tremors, and a crawling sensation that stuck to his skin, and the pounding in his head, and pain in his elbow, and mostly the awful knowledge that he was far too close to this machine.

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 **A/N:** The bit about "Uncle Paul, you're the worst" was SafyreSky's doing.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N:** Last chapter! Hope you enjoyed!

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 **4**

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Bernard sat up and tried to stand; Dr. Norskard pushed him back down. She was talking and looking concerned but Bernard couldn't understand her. She pulled the catheter out of his arm, along with the tape. Apparently he'd caused the spade-shaped needle to twist around when he'd tried to pull it out in the machine and now the doctor wrapped a red band around his elbow above the cotton ball she'd stuck over the hole. His teeth rattled; he tried to stand again. She pushed him back down.

"I need to get out," he chattered.

She unclipped whatever had been clipped to his finger.

"Okay," she said. "We can leave now."

He stood, or tried to, but he was shaking and his joints seemed weak. Dr. Norskard and Santa helped him into the radiology room and it seemed to him as if they intended to sit him down in the chair next to the computer, where Dr. Norskard had previously taken his blood pressure, but he pulled away from them and pushed through the door into the hallway before they could stop him. He made it across the hall and several steps down, where three chairs sat lined up against the hallway wall, and here he turned and sat down and placed his trembling hands on his knees and really felt that wild ponies wouldn't have been able to haul him back into the radiology room again. He would have simply teleported away right there in the middle of the hospital, witnesses be damned, but knew he'd end up dead if he tried to teleport in the state he was in.

 _Iron._ Of all the things that could have happened to him in a hospital, he gets shoved into an iron tube specifically designed to become a powerful and murderous magnet. The Earth's magnetic field was powerful, but not as powerful as other things in the solar system, and when these things screwed around with the Earth's fields Bernard sometimes felt it; sometimes more, sometimes less, but never anything like _this_. He loved humans, he did, but magnet-machines? He bitterly thanked humanity for a decade's worth of nightmare material.

Santa had followed him out and was now hovering. If Bernard hadn't been so shaken, he would have had a full-blown hissy fit at Paul Mason. _Why didn't you listen?_ he wanted to shout. _I could have died in there!_ Not understanding how the MRI thing worked, he didn't really know what would have happened if the doctor had turned the machine on, but he couldn't help imagining himself being blown apart and plastered to the inside of the MRI tube like sparkly red spray paint. Dr. Norskard was barreling through the radiology door now and coming towards them, holding a bunch of tools, and Bernard turned and interrupted Santa; the man had been saying something but Bernard had heard none of it. Instead of any of several nasty things he wanted to hit Santa with, Bernard heard himself say:

"Go call Sandman."

Santa looked from Bernard to Dr. Norskard and back to Bernard, and then he gave a slight nod and walked away.

Dr. Norskard took out her trusty flashlight and shone it into Bernard's eyes as she began to ask him questions. Was he dizzy? Did his head hurt? Was he feeling faint? What was today's date? He answered her questions as she finished with the flashlight and checked his pulse and listened to his heart and wrote things down and when all was said and done it turned out he was fine, really, except for feeling cold (because of the contrast dye) and feeling tired (because of the sedative) and feeling a bit loopy (because of the pain-killer) and being in shock (because of what he knew had been a brush with what could have been death but to her had only been a claustrophobic episode).

Then a nurse came with a wheelchair and took him away from the radiology wing. Bernard did not ask anyone to let Paul Mason know where to find him. The nurse wheeled him down several hallways, and then into another room where someone tried to take a blood sample, and when he refused, they took the bandage from his hand so they could take the glass out of his palm and re-wrap it. Then they tried to set his broken wrist, but could not find the break, of course, so paperwork had to be done to render him exempt from treatment. Then they noticed that he was still trembling.

"Are you cold?" the nurse asked him, curiously.

"No." By now, the effect of the contrast dye had worn off.

"Ah," said the nurse, nodding in understanding. "Traffic accidents are terrifying."

Bernard didn't feel like explaining the real reason behind the tremors.

"I'll get you a blanket," she continued. "Then I think we have some issues here to clear up with your, ah, account. Dr. Norskard will be in shortly, she said she wants to discuss a few things with you." The nurse patted a stack of paperwork over on the desk before taking off in search of a blanket. Bernard sat and trembled and waited for the nurse to return with a blanket until he realized that right then was probably the ideal time to leave.

He left the room and it came to his attention that he wasn't wearing shoes. He couldn't remember when they'd come off but he didn't care to track them down. His balance had largely returned, which was a good thing, since he was trying to look inconspicuous as he made his way past hospital staff and patients from the bus accident who he hoped were on their way to a better hospital experience than he'd just been subjected to. He wasn't even sure where he was going. He couldn't teleport yet; he still didn't feel put-together enough.

He realized he'd better find Santa. Furious though Bernard was with the man, he still didn't want Santa to have to get tangled up in all the paperwork that Bernard was sure was headed his way – at least not here in the hospital. Let all that come later, through the mail. For now, it was better that they both made an exit as soon as possible.

That, and he wanted to make sure Santa had called Sandman.

"He'd _better_ have called," Bernard grumbled to himself. The feeling of urgency to correct that whole situation, which had so hounded him before, had now been numbed. He felt smaller – diminished – and he felt his energy to deal with Santa's recruitment plan, whatever the consequences, were also diminished.

Bernard tried to remember which way he'd come from, and begun to backtrack, keeping an eye out for the various nurses and doctors who he was sure would be looking for him soon. He followed the signs to radiology and, now that he was aware of what radiology meant, felt distinctly worse as he got closer to the magnetic machines. Warily, he turned towards where he had thought Dr. Norskard had said the waiting room was. Right before rounding the corner, he could hear Santa's voice, and Bernard tried to put away his anger as he came around the corner. Now wasn't the time to explode at his boss, now was the time to quietly exit the premises and –

Bernard stopped short in the wide doorway and stared. A flock of kids were clustered around Santa. The kids were young, and they were all wearing bracelets just like Bernard's, and two of them looked very pale, and one was in a wheelchair. They were all smiling and staring up at Santa Claus. The parents kept to the chairs, but they were all beaming at the man in the waiting room with the white beard and funny laugh.

The kids were telling him what they wanted for Christmas.

Bernard's mind stalled.

Santa caught sight of him in the doorway and just for a moment his bright smile was dashed away by a slurry of other emotions, among which were concern and irritation and relief, a strange combination indeed. The smile was back in a minute but it wasn't as sincere as before as he turned his attention back to the kids.

One of the girls had caught Santa's distracted stare and turned, and saw Bernard standing in the doorway. She shot up and ran to him – _nothing wrong with that girl_ , he thought – and said,

"Are you an elf?"

He didn't know what to say.

"Because that's Santa Claus and you have pointy ears."

Kids always picked up on these things, the small things.

"You got me," he said. "Yeah, I'm an elf." His teeth chattered; still in shock.

She spotted his hospital bracelet, and held up her own next to his, and then smiled up at him as if the plastic bracelets were friendship bracelets, and then she grabbed his hand and pulled him into the room and he almost lost his balance but caught it just in time to fall into a crouch next to the rest of the smiling kids gathered around Santa. They thought the arrival of a real live elf was apparently the greatest thing since Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figures, which were, Bernard happened to know, the latest great thing. The little girl was no longer smiling, however. She hadn't let go of Bernard's hand.

"You're shivering," she said. "Are you scared?"

He looked at the girl with the matching hospital bracelet and thought of how she was the same species as the humans who had managed to create a magnet-machine that felt several dozen times worse than what happened when unimaginably large celestial bodies interacted. He could feel the eyes of her parents, just two chairs over, boring into his head.

"He's shivering because he just saw the amount of paperwork coming my way, isn't that right?" said Santa.

"Yeah. Two feet high. At _least_ ," said Bernard. "Terrifying." The parents laughed appreciatively.

"Time for me to go, kids," said Santa, rising, and sounding sincerely regretful. The waiting room parents called off their kids and all of them waved as Bernard and Santa left, no doubt thinking the hospital had been awfully considerate to hire entertainers for the kids, unseasonable as the act had been.

"Are you okay?" Santa asked quietly.

"Yes. Did you – "

" _Yes,_ I called Sandman. Everything's fine. Details later."

Bernard shot him a dubious look but said nothing. Together they trekked strategically around the hospital corridors, looking for an exit and avoiding the wings most likely to have people who may have been searching for them. After one close encounter with the grumpy nurse who'd first tried to draw Bernard's blood, they found themselves in front of a small side-exit that opened up into a dark parking lot slicked with rain. They left behind the hospital, and they temporarily left behind the dreaded paperwork, which would continue to haunt Paul Mason in the form of hospital bills, explanations of benefits, and, eventually, thrillingly austere letters from debt collectors (to Bernard's secret delight). Eventually the elf network managed to make the whole incident disappear from all official records but it took several months.

It wasn't _quite_ pouring outside but it was more than a drizzle, and it wasn't long before their clothing was sodden.

"Where are we going?" asked Bernard, breaking their silence.

"Bus," said Santa.

Santa had just enough cash on him to buy two more tickets. Once they sat down (it was late, and there were plenty of open seats), Santa handed Bernard his own radio, and his hat, which Santa had found alongside his own radio behind the radiology help desk.

"I called Sandman off," said Santa. "Everything's fine. Sandman found one elf but she wasn't interested. Apparently she said she didn't want to leave Iceland; something about wanting to take care of the people there in the village she lives in."

Bernard nodded once; it sounded like Sandman had gotten lucky. Days later Bernard would find out from Sandman himself that two other elves had in fact been found, both of whom would turn out to be on the nasty side. Later, when it came time to deal with them, Bernard didn't draw Santa into it, for fear of digging up the recent past. Sandman would prove to be extremely apologetic for having gotten involved without knowing what he was getting into. Bernard forgave him readily; it wasn't Sandman's fault.

At the moment, however, Bernard was not thinking about Sandman.

A woman sitting across from the two of them was actively trying not to stare at Bernard, at his lack of shoes and his bracelet and his bloody sleeve and wrapped palm and at the bruises that were crawling down onto his wrists from the inside of his elbows. He pulled his sleeves down and rested his face in his hand, and the rest of the bus ride was silent. It took only minutes to get to the stop near which Santa had parked his car.

The meter had long since expired but miraculously nobody had placed a ticket on the windshield. When they got into Santa's car Bernard was still shaking, so Santa threw his jacket over onto Bernard's lap, and then more carefully draped a spare coat that had been in the back seat over Bernard's shoulders, which was, Bernard thought, a strangely considerate thing for Santa to do. Santa went so far as to dig a pocket knife out of the glove department and hand it to Bernard. Bernard snapped the knife open and cut the plastic bracelet from his wrist.

Santa drove them out of Boston proper, and towards Newton. After ten minutes, Santa said,

"I think you owe me an explanation."

Bernard reached over and turned the radio on. He knew he was being surly but he thought if the trembling in his gut didn't stop soon he was going to vomit, and talking about secrets and trust and blame and so forth was only going to make him feel worse.

Def Leppard blasted through the cab.

"Oh please, not _that_ ," yelled Santa, over the noise.

Bernard changed the station.

The rest of the ride to Newton passed with the radio and the sound of the rain on the windshield filling in the silence. They passed clusters of buildings lit from within, constellations of windows and apartments and towers and cars and highway lights flashing and leaving spots and streaks of bright color in Bernard's eyes; he closed them.

They arrived in Newton at Santa's brother-in-law's house – it was the brother-in-law's car – and Santa started towards the backyard to fetch Comet.

"Think I'll take off from here, Santa," said Bernard. Santa turned and looked him up and down.

"You sure? Feeling up to it?"

"I'm fine."

Santa didn't look as if he believed Bernard but he was mostly telling the truth.

"Okay," said Santa, nodding. "See you up there."

"Right."

"I expect we'll talk about this at a later point," said Santa. "You have some explaining to do."

Bernard made a noncommittal noise. Santa took that as a promise, or close enough to a promise to drop it for the moment, as he then nodded and turned and left. Bernard took a breath, let it out, took another breath, let that one out, shook out his arms (winced; both of them hurt), closed his eyes, told himself he could do it, and then he teleported back up to the North Pole. Back up to Judy the Wonderful, back to the elves he'd grown to love over the centuries.

Probably he shouldn't have teleported, and though nothing really went wrong, his headache came back in force. First he found Judy (to reassure himself that she was still there and was still wonderful), and then Judy lugged him to the Elfirmiry, where the staff told him he had a moderately serious concussion and should take it easy and not bash his head against any walls. When they'd asked what had happened, he said 'bus accident', and though they definitely saw his wrapped palm and probably noted the presence of the myriad bandages and deepening bruises spangled up the insides of his arms, and knew that 'bus accident' didn't quite explain everything, they never asked him to elaborate, and he offered details to nobody, save those members of the elf network concerned with smoothing everything out back down in Boston.

Santa tried many times over the next few weeks to pry some answers out of Bernard about what had happened in Boston – what Bernard had done that had caused Judy (the Vengeful) to disappear so quickly, why the fear of iron and magnets and why the extreme reaction, why the insistence that no more elves be located, and, above all, why the refusal to answer Santa's questions.

Bernard knew he'd never trust Paul Mason enough to answer these questions. It wasn't necessarily that what Santa had done was unforgiveable – if it had been nearly anyone else, Bernard would have shared the blame and forgiven what missteps had happened, or so he liked to tell himself. But Bernard now had the inexplicable fear that any trust they built between them would surely be shattered by some future incident. He wasn't sure this was logical, nor was he sure it was the right thing to do, but after what had happened behind the hospital's radiology doors, his trust would not sit with this Santa Claus, even though in the end Paul Mason had relented and called Sandman back from Iceland. Trying to trust Paul Mason was like trying to put the same end of two magnets together.

Santa seemed to think the same of Bernard. Even after the drama with the bus and at the hospital, drama that could have been prevented with a handful of answers, Bernard wouldn't talk.

Once they knew this about one another, once they stopped trying so hard to prove the other wrong, once they let the Boston incident sink into the past and they shared a tacit agreement never to bring it up again, they settled into an understanding about the reality of their relationship, which was that they must stop expecting to see eye-to-eye. They had lost their chance to get along, and each of them blamed the other. Fortunately, they didn't need to get along to get things done.

Despite all this, Bernard found that disliking the current Santa Claus felt unnatural, to say the least, and it was with a shameful sort of relief that he received the news late on December 24th, 1993, that Paul Mason had fallen off a roof in Chicago, IL, and the new guy and his son were on their way to the North Pole.

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 **A/N:** Thank you to all who read and thank you to all who left their thoughts in reviews, and thank you to all who forgave all the medical and historical and possibly grammatical inaccuracies. Yay fantasy!

This is the last chapter of THIS story but possibly we haven't heard all we're going to hear from some of the side characters in this story, who may pop up in Just An Elf.


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